More on who we are
We are all women. We have had intense discussions at times about whether to have men or not. Some were happy to include men, but those who disagreed felt strongly enough that we gave their views more weight.Each year someone takes on the responsibility of updating our membership list, so that everyone has a correct list of house addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, etc.
We are all on email and we have a listserv. This helps a lot when we need to make changes to meeting dates because of last-minute problems.Where we are
We live in the Greater Vancouver area, British Columbia, Canada.When we meet
We meet once a month, September to June, the second Thursday evening of the month, from 7:30 P.M. to about 10:00 P.M. We don't meet in July and August. We take turns meeting at each others' houses, in alphabetical name order. We have tea and coffee and store bought goodies, unless our hostess feels like baking. Once in a while we do a potluck supper, maybe once a year. We have wine or sherry at Christmas, and champagne in June. Every June we meet at one woman's house and celebrate the end of our season together and some June birthdays. We discuss a book in October, November, December, January, February, March, April, May and June (nine books a year). In October we discuss the big book that we had chosen to read over the summer and fall. At the September meeting we do not discuss a book. We catch up on visiting and news of the summer, and choose the books for the next season. Sometimes a few of us go to movies or literary events, like the Writers' and Readers' Festival or the Sechelt Festival of the Written Arts.How we choose our books
It took us a long time to refine our book choosing, but it works very well now. Each member brings three book choices. We each do a book talk on our nominees. The group votes on these to make a total of nine books. We look for balance in our selection, like a non-fiction work, a classic, something unconventional, men and women writers, etc. We order the reading so that the longest book is for the next summer, and the book before Christmas is short and non-depressing.
last updated September 2009